“I know Mr. Sumner well. In former times I had a long, an intimate, and an affectionate acquaintance with him; and I feel bound to say that he is a scholar of rich and rare acquirements, a gentleman of noble qualities and generous aims, distinguished for the amenities of social life, and a companion most welcome in the society of the most generous, the most refined, the most exalted. Sir, I had nothing to do with sending Mr. Sumner to the Senate of the United States; I had no vote to cast on that occasion; and if I had had, it would not, on public grounds, have been cast for him. I shall have none to cast, when the time for another election comes; but if I had five hundred votes, every one should be given to send him back again. [_Great applause._] “Such is the man for whom ruffians lay in wait, whom they assaulted, when unarmed and defenceless, in the Senate House.” Richard H. Dana, Jr., Esq., made an elaborate speech, of which the following is only an extract. “But I cannot, if I would, altogether withdraw my thoughts from this personal outrage upon Mr. Sumner. Charles Sumner! ‘He is my friend,--faithful and just to me.’ I cannot allow myself to call up that scene in the Senate House, lest I should feel more than I shall be able to express or be willing to betray. Boston, his native town, has spoken. Next to Boston, there is no place so dear to him as Cambridge. He is a true son of Harvard. The best years of his early life, from fifteen to twenty-three, he spent here: the four years of college,--a fifth year which he wisely, though unusually, added to his course, for the perfecting of his classical and general studies,--and the three years of his studies in the Law School. At the Law School his attainments were not only great, but wonderful; and for purity of character, kindness, and frankness, he was respected and beloved by all. He was the friend, young as he was, the beloved friend, the frequent and honored guest of Story, of Channing, and of Allston. He was the companion of your Longfellow and your Felton. No young man was more honored by Mr. Webster--in I had almost said his better days. He was the friend of every man and of every cause that deserved to have a friend. At the bar he distinguished himself, especially in juridical literature. He was the reporter of Judge Story’s decisions, and editor of the _Jurist_, where the young student will find the copious results of his enthusiastic labors in his then beloved profession. When he went abroad, he took nothing in his hand that his own merits had not given him. He had not one claim that did not rest on character, learning, and talents. Still under the age of thirty, he became in Europe the honored friend of men whose names have honored the world. Turning his back upon the attractions of dissipation